Liberals now are going to run to the defense of a drug that causes a significant number of overdose deaths just to spite Trump:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37436926/
I think it's fair to say there there is still no safe analgesic. Normal NSAIDs wreck your stomach and probably your heart. Opioids are physically safe in comparison but addictive.
The trouble with autism is that it's eaten up all other developmental disorder diagnoses:
https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Matrix-Gil-Eyal/dp/074564399X
It used to be you were MR or a little bit weird or in some other way different. If you're a bipolar adult like Kanye West you might say you are autistic to escape the stigma of serious mental illness.
The autism awareness movement has everybody scared so when a paper like this
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2025/07/09/major-autism-study...
presents data to the effect that 37-90% of people who think they are autistic actually aren't it is presented as if there are five autism subtypes.
https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Matrix-Gil-Eyal/dp/074564399X
and you can ask the question of why schizotypy
https://www.amazon.com/Schizotypy-Schizophrenia-View-Experim...
is ignored which is that by being a developmental disability "autism" avoids the stigma that a diagnosis of severe mental ilness would bring (e.g. confirmed bipolar Kanye West thinks he is autistic, Elon Musk who sure acts like he's bipolar but is not diagnosed also thinks he is autistic) If you told the parents of the kid who's being bullied in first grade who shows some signs of anxiety and seems to be dressed oddly that he has a 10% chance of losing his mind completely as a young adult they'd be horrified. Tell them that he has autism and they can get more resources.
https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Matrix-Gil-Eyal/dp/074564399X
One issue is that special ed has taken all the air out of the room for kids who are not thriving in school but don’t have a diagnosis. I went to a PTA meeting where the superintendent completely dismissed any concerns I had about the school but gushed over how the mother of a “special” kid was a partner in his education. (Other parents and teachers did show some sympathy)
If you want to have some rights as a parent you are practically forced to get your child a diagnosis: if they are in the bottom 25% of readers that have ‘Dyslexia’ which similarly seems to have distinct enough subtypes that an honest definition is ‘bottom 25% of readers’
So autism went from being a disabling condition to something that applies to many people who really ought to have “no apparent distress” in their chart because you can’t be different without some reification of the difference.